Treacle Mines of England

It should have been a mine-shaft,
but they built a tower. Saxonbury Tower stands proud on the Kent,
Sussex border, but should never have been there. A gentleman
from Frant had discovered treacle, in the area of Saxonbury Wood,
whilst out dowsing with his 'treacle-tracker'. He drew up plans
to sink a mine, which he sketched on the back of a beer mat in
his local Frant ale house near the church. Sadly, he drank himself
silly, leaving his drawings, which found their way into the hands
of Robert Stacey a local builder; Robert read the plans up-side-down,
so that is why there is no treacle mine.

Today, if you walk in Saxonbury
Woods, you will find a tower, but you can be sure there is treacle
under foot. The Sussex soil in this area has been described as
'stoachy'. In the days when men were charcoal burners; when men
dug for iron ore and drove the wagon loads of ore to the many
furnaces in this area, the roads became gradually worse. The
cattlemen added to the chaos. There were tracks of cattle droves
everywhere, the foot marks of oxen rutted the ground, horses
could not keep their legs because of the sad state of the muddy
roads; it has even been said that all the tall people living
in this part of Sussex - had longer legs than most, simply because
they had to pull so hard to get their feet out of the sticky
mud to make any progress.

What is not commonly known
that this stickiness, in the stoachy conditions, comes from the
underlying treacle ! You may well scoff, but arm yourself with
a treacle-tracker (or dowsing-rod) - walk through any woods between
Buxted and Tonbridge - and you find a strange feeling as your
dowsing-rod passes over the ground; a sharp twitch, followed
by an upward swing, and eureka your treacle-tracker hits you
in your face; you have found treacle.

Before you rush off to fill
in all the forms for planning permission to open up a treacle-mine,
it is as well to read more about the Treacle Mines of England.
You may feel you should explore other areas first, because treacle
mine sites can be found all over England, but not in Yorkshire.
If you live in a remote place which could be described as being
small and rural, you could be sitting on a treacle mine. For
the past century, many village people, that have claimed to have
a treacle mine, have become the butt of many jokes, but in times
of gloom, the stories told about our Treacle Mines have been
very funny - and really it was all part of a big cover-up by
the Government !

The tales of treacle mines
were given a badge of identity called "blason populaire"
by the Political Intelligence Executive in 1899, which was charged,
by the Government at that time, with the task of creating an
underground resistance movement in case of invasion from an enemy.
The P.I.E. agents, known as the Treacle Miners, used the legend
of the ancient treacle miners to establish a net work of defences
that would act offensively, following an invasion of our country.
As the enemy occupied an area, the Treacle Miners would emerge
from their mines and carry out as much sabotage as they could
to hamper the enemy's movements.

The first mines selected for
re-opening included; Dunchideock in Devon, Buxted in Sussex,
Sabden in Lancashire, Tadley in Hampshire and Caister in Norfolk.

Following the demise of Napoleon,
England dropped its defences, suspended most of its troops except
for its 'Regular Army' which was engaged on "Imperial"
duties, leaving the Yeomanries for any internal duties. It was
brought to the Government's attention, that Germany remained
a threat and that even some internal problems had proved difficult
for the Yeomanry Home Guard to handle. One such incident involved
the 45th Regiment of Foot which had their barracks at Canterbury.
It was about mid-day on the last day in May 1838 that the internal
security was threatened by a rabble army led by a mad Cornish
man - Thom Courtenay who was also known as 'Mad Sugar Tooth Courtenay'
(because of his claim to have the sole rights for all the treacle
mines in Cornwall) but, he much preferred to be known as Sir
William Courtenay, Knight of Malta - and he proudly carried his
family standard which depicted a crossed spade and pick on a
sea of treacle.

The fact was; that Sir William
(Mad Sugar Tooth) Courtenay, Knight of Malta, had been released
from the Kent County Lunatic Asylum and immediately aroused a
fanatical following of country yokels and armed them with clubs.
He drilled them and prepared them for battle, promising them
a better life if they would follow him. News of the rabble army
was sent to the local part-time constable. He donned his uniform
called in his brother for support and swore him in as his deputy.
Both of them went to confront the mad Cornish man. Sadly, Sir
William Courtenay was in no mood for being arrested and without
much a do - shot the constable's brother.

Luckily the 45th Regiment
on Foot was on parade in Canterbury and they moved in strength
to arrest Courtenay and his men. In the affray that followed,
Courtenay shot Lieutenant Bennett of the 45th, who was advancing
towards the mob with his sword raised. Almost immediately Courtenay
himself was killed and many others were arrested. (In Canterbury
Cathedral there is a wall tablet placed in Lieutenant Bennett's
memory).

Following other 'internal'
disturbances, it was decided to form a secret defence army. This
resulted in the formation of Treacle PIE (Political Intelligence
Executive) which has been kept a secret for almost a century.
When it was created by the Home Office in 1899 its activities
were headed by Tom Holland from Burnley in Lancashire. He and
his executive members which included - Patrick Pitman, Hol Crane,
Brian Williamson, Alfred Longley, Robert Malone, John Kelly and
John Hodgson. These men, from different areas of the country,
were each given the task of assembling personnel to form a secret
army to protect England from any enemy. Tom Holland and his colleagues,
used the 'Legend of the English Treacle Mines' to organise units
of Treacle Miners.

Little comment was made in
the many villages, where local men were recruited to re-open
old treacle mine workings (most of them had been closed for over
two hundred years and had become part of the folk tales of the
villages). Tom Holland re-opened the Sabden Treacle Mine in the
side of Pendle Hill in Lancashire; the Dunchideock Treacle Mine,
near Exeter in Devon, was managed by Patrick Pitman of Dunchideock
House; Basil Courtenay in Buxted in East Sussex; Alfred Longley
in Hampshire were the other 'agents' in-charge.

Secret Service Agents, most
people think are supermen like James Bond living a life of excitement
with danger at every turn, performing feats of daring in defence
of their country; the weapons they used were specially designed
and the agents who used them belonged to a world of violence,
wine and women. This was not the case for the Treacle Miners.
These agents were recruited from all walks of life; they all
had to be fit, reasonably intelligent honest citizens, who would
eventually be transformed into redoubtable terrorists.

In a brief memorandum to Tom
Holland, the Prime Minister was quoted as saying that P.I.E's
function was to :-

" co-ordinate all action
by way of subversion and sabotage against the enemy that could
invade our shores...... and to confuse all, in a cover-up of
their activities, with a form of black treacle -propaganda -
which would baffle, and amuse, ............... "

Each 'Treacle Miner' was provided
with a revolver and explosives.

After the first year at least
one hundred 'Treacle Mines' were re-opened; everything about
their activities was kept highly secretive, but the miners (some
of them local with families) gave out stories of finding new
sources of treacle.

Tom Holland wrote to the Prime
Minister :-

Dear Prime Minister,

Treacle P.I.E.

The treacle miners have been
accepted by the communities where they are operating, largely
because most of the miners have been recruited locally, mostly
from among farmers, game-keepers and known poachers who know
the areas well. The men have been trained to act offensively
where any enemy troops may be concerned.

In addition to their revolvers
and explosives they have been equipped with rifles, grenades,
daggers, semaphore flags and heliograph mirrors. Most of the
'agents' will remain with their own families living in their
own villages, others have been placed into lodgings. In the event
of an invasion, living quarters have been provided, in the mines,
to match the comforts of their own homes.

All the activities of the
Treacle Miners are under the direct supervision of a 'Mine Manager',
who is in close collaboration with other units throughout the
country, using pigeon-post or our special signal-network posts.

Tom Holland set up Sabden
Hall in 1893 and established the first base of operations and
training, this base was closely followed by the opening of Dunchideock
House near Exeter and Buxted Manor in East Sussex. Within the
extensive grounds of these bases, their isolation was enough
to conceal their use as training bases for the Treacle miners.

The Treacle Miners were well
versed in the history of the treacle mines of England; techniques
in sabotage, spying and unarmed combat. It was essential for
the 'plan' to work that the Treacle Miners should be able to
play a defensive role, whilst the true nature of their work should
remain secret. The plan worked so well that of the one hundred
treacle mines, that were re-opened, no one knew, in any of the
villages, that under their very noses, a secret army was at work.

By 1920, with no invasion,
all the agents returned to their normal life and the treacle
mines were closed, neglected, overgrown and forgotten. But, the
Dunchideock mines were still producing treacle in 1997 - and
it is thanks to their research into the treacle mining history,
which dates back to the dinorsaurs, that we can read about how
'treacle' played an important part in our history and that treacle
is still there waiting to be found probably under our own feet.